I Ran For the Party but I'm not sure why

Whew! Today's double-header is finished and in the history books!! I don't think I will ever run two races in one day again at the request of my left knee, left calf and my right hip. I'm not sure why, but two 5Ks is feels more difficult than the half did! I think it's a combination of trying to keep a good, fast 5K pace and the humidity this time of year.

The first race of the day was the Smyrna Parks 5K race. I think this is its 27th year or something. It's been going a while! It's always a fairly large race and this year they ended up with 466 participants. We were running a little behind getting there, so they only had L and XL shirts left. That's a bummer because they have the best shirts, and it's a long sleeve shirt too boot. We preregistered several weeks ago, so it always gets me why they don't order more S & M shirts! Not to be mean , but this race is always around 500 people and there aren't that many L & XL people out there participating in stuff like this!! This course is really flat and fast, but a tad dull. You have to repeat a big chunk of it and it's basically a paved trail around ball fields (not exciting in the least). Last year it was downright miserable because it was SUNNY and HOT and there is very, very little shade on this course. Luckily we had a lot of rain yesterday and this morning was still very overcast (prob has to do with the hurricane in FL). For some reason I really didn't 'feel' it today, mentally. We lined up and all the sudden, with no warning, the gun was sounded! We inched up the line and off we went. This race is in conjuction with the local high school track teams, so it's packed in the under 19 age groups. The down side to this is that these kids like to run in packs about 4 wide. It's such a pain to get around them, so it's about impossible to keep an even pace for the first mile until the crowd thins out. My left calf has been bothering me since Thurs night's run (I guess I got a little too excited about running with my new Dazer) so I didn't feel like I had a lot of gusto. The up side to a big high school turn out is a decent amount of crowd support. I know they're cheering for their kid beside me but I channel it for myself. The other up-side are the great costumes the kids wear. Last Saturday's cross-dressing guys were this Saturday's Chippendales (they had little bow-ties on with no shirt and black shorts). There was also a group of guys dressed in Egyptian outfits with headdresses and gold wrap-around skirts on. When I crossed the line I looked at my watch : 26:37! The exact same PR I had set last week. I guess that's just meant to be my pace for now. I really didn't feel like I had a shot of placing what-so-ever. Last year I placed 13th out of 24 in my division with a time of 28:07. They did a great job starting the door prizes soon after the finish and they started the awards. The race director called each division out backwards - 3rd, 2nd, then 1st. When he got to my age group I was hopeful, but I really didn't feel like it would be possible. Whaddya know - I got third!! I couldn't believe it!! A little 3rd place trophy for me. I got 3rd out of 16 people in my division. I still can't believe it! My actual chip time ended up being 26:33, so I actually shaved 4 seconds off my PR, which was my main goal for today's races. Even though it's only 4 seconds I'll take it! Brent also shaved quite a bit of time off his run, but I'll let him talk about all that in his blog tomorrow.

So we headed home very content and ready to rest up for the next race. We stopped at a couple of yard sales, pulled some weeds from our garden (AND Dazered our annoying neighbor's dogs who won't shut up every time we're in the yard. It worked great!! They stopped barking and went back inside. Normally they'll bark non-stop for up to an hour, seriously), and headed to Logan's for some grilled chicken and carbs! We took a short afternoon nap and headed back out to the Race for the Party. This was it's 1st year, so I did expect some chaos but NOTHING like it turned out. The premise was that it was to be a fun race, costumes were encouraged, ppl with August birthdays got free registration, and they were giving out martinis and beer after the race. The race director's claim to fame was painting himself blue for the CMM. In all honesty, he seems like a fun guy but that doesn't necessarily make one a great race director. Walkers were also encouraged to participate. I have to admit, I have a little of the runner vs walker rivalry. I have NO problem with them if they start in the back, problem is they usually don't. They were told to line up quite a distance behind the runners, and faster runners in the front, slower runners in the back. Maybe some people don't really get what 'fast' is. This was the worst, slowest start of any race I've ever been in. Elbows were flying and people were all over each other. It was a mess. It started near the Musica roundabout on Music Row. This is a very pretty area, but starting right next to the roundabout was not the best idea, the road is very narrow and with the curve people were all over each other. I ended up cutting through the grass and running down the sidewalk (instead of the street) to get out of the total cluster$#%#. Doing so caused me to burn way more energy than I needed to. The first mile was packed with people, and had a serious amount of uphills. It was rough and my legs were SCREAMING at me. Once you thought you were done with a hill another one started. My 1st mile split was 8:40, the last few races I've been averaging between 7:40 and 8. Mile Two was a lot better, but Mile 1 had already taken a lot out of me. I was SO glad I was wearing my FuelBelt. The first mile was so tough I drank a full 8-ounce bottle! They didn't offer water until mile 2, so a lot of people were fading. Mile 3 wasn't bad either, it did have one big uphill that slowed everyone down to a near walk. Even though it was nice and overcast today it was HUMID, and still really warm and the mix of the humidity and constant hills took a huge toll on people. All of the sudden I was back at the Musica statue and headed downhill (for a change!) to the finish. I saw a guy dressed in a raisin costume right in front of me so I got my camera phone out and snapped away. Then I decided to catch him so I could be in all the photos people were taking of him (why not!) So I bumped it up and finished next to a raisin. My unofficial time is 28:12 (I knew it would be bad!) The timing clock was behind a bunch of people so this is the time I stopped my watch at. My real time is probably 5-10 seconds better. I ran back to cheer Brent on and then we headed over to the 'party area'. We went over to get our free martinis and complimentary plastic martini glasses. If there's one thing I really don't want after a race it's a martini. It was way too tart or sweet or something. I had drained both my fuelbelt bottles during the race so I was out of water. The ONLY water they had at the race were large coolers with tiny dixie cups and the line was out of sight. No fruit, no bananas, martinis were the central focus. You were supposed to only have 2 martinis per person, but the crowd was in control and people were getting whatever they wanted. Finally they started the costume contest (Prince and the raisin won) and next they did door prizes. Instead of the EEOC method most races use he called out random numbers from the bibs he saw. This led to lots of crazy shouting and one woman repeatedly jerking on his shorts to call her number. He gave in and she walked away with a gym bag. He told us results were coming, results were coming, results were coming. For some reason only a certain number of people got chips. I have no idea if they were trying to reconcile the non-chip ppl with the chip ppl but for some reason results weren't happening. Much, much later he came back out and awarded the overall top 3 male and female finishers and that was it. They didn't know their time and they didn't award the divisional awards. WTF?? I've never been at a race and been told to 'check the website in a few days and go to the local Fleet Feet and pick up your award if you got one'. That's messed up. I think there ended up being around 1200 people but lord knows if we'll ever know for sure. I doubt I'll do this race next year, it was too big of a mess and I can't stand loud, annoying drunk people. It was a great concept and I imagine the race director envisioned a much younger, hipper crowd than the loud, old Jimmy Buffet fans he ended up with. Oh well, it's just one more for the stack of race bibs. I'm pooped!

I'll post race pics tomorrow!!

Rachel

Exercise:
Fri-1 mile am walk with Pippin
Sat- 5k race am, 5k race pm